No, I haven't updated the chicago entry yet. Not enough time. But I'm taking a few minutes here at the end of the day to write up this intense week as I'm in the middle of it.
It's been a strange combination of terror and happiness. I entered it high on the wave of the Chicago trip, and descended into the trough of terror Sunday night/Monday morning as I realized all I had to do: Process Control homework Wednesday AND Friday (I thought there would be none this week), Health & Safety lecture summaries due Friday, Lab progress report due Thursday, Health & Safety homework Friday, and, I was later to find out, History of Symphony homework due Thursday.
But then I left Pitt, drove to NOVA for 3 hours of work, and drove from there to Akron for a glorious overnight of Pure Boss practice! That was one of the reasons I was so pressured this week--all day Monday was gone. Despite that, the time in Akron was deliciously sweet. It started when Brian came running out of the Chimas house with his guitar over his shoulder screaming and waving his arms, psyched for practice. It was like the good old days--we ripped off some great Pure Boss standards, and then we worked up two brand new songs! Then we doodled around tearing down a bit (most of it I left 'cause we'd be back Friday), smoking a lot of cloves, and drinking Steve's pure sugar cane Dr.Pepper he brought back from Texas. I figured out how to blow rough smoke rings, and that was pretty exciting. Don't worry, I don't inhale (perish the thought *shudder*). After Brian had to head to bed Steve and I took down the dance flooring at the church, filled up our gas tanks on wonderful $2.09 Ohio gas, and watched Shrek II in the Hoffman's den. I got up the next morning and left at about 8:00 for Pittsburgh.
I started my caffeine-by-necessity on Tuesday, picking up a latte at Starbucks before hitting recitation. I'd been fighting sleep the whole drive down (which is one of the most grindingly miserable states I know of being in), and couldn't afford to miss the lecture in a drowsy haze. The latte actually tasted fantastic. Strip away all the sugary stuff, and Starbucks coffee definitely kicks butt.
Tuesday I also took my daily nap, which has become another necessity since I don't have time to sleep much when I'm finishing all my assignments the night before they're due. When I'm working out, as I have been, my body just gets torn down if I don't get enough sleep. I can feel a clear difference after an hour of sleep in the afternoon--before then I just can't imagine working out being very productive.
Every day this week I pretty much got up and got to class on time or late, made it through classes, slept, worked out if I had time, and either went home to work on the next day's homework or went to work. Every night I finished what was due in the morning, worked out if I needed to, and went to bed around 1 or 2 or something. A crazy, crazy week that I look back on in wonder, 'cause it's just so ridiculous and out of control, and once again I feel like I'm barely hanging on as the wild bull of life throws me around.
Ultimately, I'm feeling pretty crappy about life these days. A job position came up at NOVA that's exactly what I would have wanted two years ago, but I have no desire to pursue it, and my resume is in a three-year-old shamble. I don't want to go to grad school, which would be the next logical step to becoming a college professor, and I don't think I'm good enough or have any connections or training to work at a studio or something, which is the one thing I'd really really like to actually DO. Jonathan is all pumped for getting a job and starting his professional career, and I watch him interview and job hunt and feel like I'm a lazy little kid sitting in a puddle of mud pouting 'cause he doesn't want to take any of the great opportunities presented to him. Like Jonathan said, I just need to pray, and God will provide whatever it is I need.
And that's what I keep coming down to as I filter through all the layers of my failure, laziness and lack: I need what only God can give. I need SOMETHING to change inside me, 'cause from where I stand now I am categorically unprepared to enter normal adult life in America. I'm tired of trying to figure out what that something is, 'cause there's so many ways my life could go, but the bottom line is I need to PRAY.
Now, I could go through the exact same process of despair again because I haven't been praying or having devotions or anything consistently for months and months and I see no desire for that in myself, and thus I feel like not only do I lack what is needed for life, but I lack what is needed to get what I lack.
However, though that train of thought appears logical to me, I've learned enough in the spiritual desert of the past years to just believe that Jesus meant what He said when he told His disciples "These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full." Ultimately--and there's no away to avoid stinking Christianese here--I think this place of desperation I'm feeling right now is right where God wants me: face to face with my weakness, and no way out except Him. It feels wrong, because it is, but I think God basically has to drag us through sin to make us actually learn truth.
I guess the fight my mind puts up against that view of things is that over the past years fundamentally nothing seems to have changed in me, while life seems to be appropriately falling apart around me as I fail to rise up to meet it. Other than the mental truths of the Bible and the people around me, I've got no reason to think that any changing grace will ever be given to me. Those are pretty dang good reasons, you say, and yes they are, but when life is falling apart around you, it tends to make a far more compelling argument for its view of things :-) So, onward I go, scraping the bottom of the barrel of my capabilities and waiting for God's grace to come up under me and help.
Is anybody out there sick of me writing about this same crap in this blog? It's like no matter how many times and ways I feel it and write it out, I never get it out clearly--there keep being more ways to look at it, and the more I write about it the more it crumbles upon itself and evades expression. I'll try one more brief shot, and then leave it.
Given all I said above, looking at that last sentence, the analogy comes to mind that God's grace is like flying. You can't fly yourself, obviously--it's silly to think you could--, but neither should you sit in the airport and wait for the plane to come pick you up.
It seems like any hopeful statement of God's free grace and our total weakness comes with the caveat that you have to "put yourself in the way of God's grace." Well folks, I don't have whatever gumption it takes to put myself in those ways. I can try for a few days, but the fact is, I'm sitting here in dirty clothes on the floor of the airport, unshaven, jobless, with about 83 cents left in my pocket, hoping something can come pick me up 'cause however much I try to "rise up," I don't have what it takes to make it out to that big comfy plane waiting on the tarmac.
So I ask again: Am I a lazy fool, or am I being realistic and this is where God has to take me?
I myself answer that I'm a lazy fool, and I beat myself up for that.
I my-"The Bible is True"-self answer that God hasn't forsaken me and ultimately joy is there for the having, no matter where I am or where I've been.
So, I listened through the Gospel of John on the way to work today.
Speaking of listening, tonight I went through some interesting music. I'll close out this blog by taking it back to the details of life. I started with the Beatles, then I hit Chemical Brothers, which I've been enjoying more and more with every listen. Mmm, it's so good! Tasty. After that I was in the mood for something similar so I listened through "Kaleidoscope Superior" by Earthsuit--an album I listened through a ton about a year ago but haven't played much since then. Then, going for the same sort of feel, I put on "Pungent Effulgent" by Ozric Tentacles--something I haven't listened to much at all ever. In keeping with my ever-increasing capacity for musical appreciation, I enjoyed the album to a pretty real degree. Lastly, I scanned through my playlists after Ozric finished up and decided on Muse, which appears to be settling in as a really good album ("Black Holes and Revelations") and was very enjoyable. It makes me think of Daniel in Grove City, 'cause we played some bass and guitar to that album when I was up there a couple weeks ago.
Now I go upstairs and, good grief, pack for Akron! Tomorrow I get up at 7:00am, somehow make it through 5 hours of classes, either work out or sleep for an hour (hopefully work out, unless I'm feeling terrible, 'cause the Peterson is so sweet), and drive to Akron for a quick practice and a Pure Boss concert at the Orange Street. *Sigh*. That's why I'm such a bad student, and so bad at living life: there's too much else going on.
But I'm happy, and I think that comes because I'm saved, and ultimately I believe in Jesus.
Thank you, Lord! I reckon' that's a lot more than I should take for granted.
Cool.
--Crazy Ambassador
Friday, September 29, 2006
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
C H I C A G O
I hate to presume upon anybody interested enough to visit here, but it's 1:40am, I'm running on a disasterous sleep deficit, and I have a cataclysmic amount of school work to be done before Friday. I wrote full journals each night in Chicago, the entirety of which is below. If you want to know what the trip was like, read on and may you find it engaging, and may you vicariously experience and enjoy some of the wonder and fun of that time. I will look this over and hopefully tighten it up later this week, but for now here's the most direct, complete and representative account of the glorious weekend in Chicago...
Oh oh oh!! I have a bunch of cell phone pictures too, which I took partially with the goal of including them in this blog. I'll do all I can to get them in here soon, and that should be SWEET.
9/21/06
So, today started out at home, sleeping in comfortably till 9:30, eating the heartiest breakfast in recent Johnian history (courtesy of the amazing Mrs. Behrens), and driving the van over to mow Complete Fitness at 10:30. What is normally a long mow became interminable, and at last, out of gas and out of trimmer line, and way out of time, I had to leave with edges still untrimmed, and basically no time to pack. But shower and pack I did, in a diligent frenzy. Katie and Sarah arrived as I was finishing, and we headed out in the Mazda not too long after our DDT* of 1:30. To the airport we drove, listening to Jars’ new album with the sweet sweet subwoofer. The flight and all went hitchlessly, except for one WOEFUL incident. Man! It’s yes, funny, but also it was really a downer. Probably a downer and a half. I had purchased a Dr.Pepper while waiting at the gate, and it had reached that perfect state of coldness and just the right amount of carbonation. It was not quite half finished, and I was enjoying it immensely. Then the dude at the end of the jetway said they wouldn’t let me take it on the plane, even though I’d bought it AFTER SECURITY inside the terminal!! So I had to give him that perfect, perfect Dr.Pepper and walk away with this literal hole in my mind and stomach where it should have been. Man, I kid you not, it was rough. But, they had Dr.P on the flight (bless you Southwest Airlines!!), so that about 85% made up for it. Arg.
So, we got to Chicago after a very short flight, got our bags, and headed for the CTA, or “El”—the train/subway system which would take us to the grand and glorious “Ohio House” hotel, our cheapest-of-the-cheap residence for the next 3 nights. The ride was good, and felt very city-like and American, as we clacked through Chicago’s odd juxtaposition of residential and industrial buildings. The big factories and warehouses and train yards and mysterious back lots and rusty equipment have always intrigued me, and riding the train was a good way to see a lot of that.
We had a bit of a walk once we got off at Grand Street, and after working out hard the day before and mowing and trimming Complete, my arms were in quite a tizzy. But I made it, and the Ohio House turned out to be a very competent, and even pleasant, cheap hotel. After getting settled in our respective rooms, Sarah, Katie and I walked about for awhile, marveling at the number of expensive restaurants around. We stopped at an Eckerd and I got some breakfasty food, and a little later we swung into a White Hen pantry, where I found WINTERGREEN SUGAR-FREE ALTOIDS!! Pretty much one of the best mints I could possibly come across. Man, the joys of a mint collection! And they’re really good, too—not so strong they burn craters in your tongue like the peppermint ones. Happy happy!
Nate Dogg Cold Six Packs To Go called to let us know he was close to the hotel (he had to get a later flight ‘cause of a meeting he was at in Philly), so we hoofed it back, got him settled in the room, and headed out to forage for dinner. We foraged our way to the ORIGINAL Unos Pizzeria, where we waited for a good while and ended up ploughing through copiously-cheesed deep-dish Chicago pizza, talking, laughing, and banging knees across the very narrow booth. It was a cool place, and the pizza was good, though my richness tolerance was soon being pushed. The Code Red Mt. Dew was great, though, and left me high (and probably really irritating) for the rest of the night.
Which we spent walking down to the lake and then wandering around SSCCCHwanky areas of downtown. SSCCCHwanky here representing Sarah’s gratuitiously-Pittsburghian pronunciation of “swanky.” The lake was cool and we walked through this awesome little park with a panoramic view of the lit-up city from a square of perfect green grass with the lake to our backs and the wind blowing at us. Then as we walked down a street inland, I took us up this stairway, thinking it would be a cool little patio thing to walk on for a bit before going back down to the ground. But it turned out that THAT was the level that the city was on! I could hardly believe it, and we spent a lot of time walking around exploring it, but a whole ton of the city around the lakefront and river is actually two levels. The lower one seems to be mostly roads and parking garages, and then the upper level, very much of which is just concrete on steel pillars, is where everybody walks and shops and drives on 8-lane roads stretching for miles. I just couldn’t believe how amazing that was (and probably tired everyone with my attempts to grapple with it)—that this whole world was elevated, that there was all this mysterious stuff beneath us, and that it had all been constructed, at who knows what cost. It’s hard to describe, but something about that removal from the pedestrian and predictable constraints of normal ground-based areas was very very intriguing, and ineffably tantalizing. I love cities for that reason, and this night, as we wandered around the levels and random nooks, fountains, benches and walkways, provided ample material for wonderment and joy. Oh, and it was AMAZING. At one point we were walking along, approaching this big crowd of people outside some restaurant. This car was parked in a little driveway sorta thing, and as we walked around it I saw the little “B” indicating that it was a Bentley…probably a two hundred thousand dollar car. Two spots down on the curb was a Ferrari, and behind that was a Porsche sport ute. We walked through the crowd, which consisted of very fine-looking folks and security people. The restaurant looked packed and very SCCHHWanky, and I marveled that we had just walked through the kind of high-brow uber-sophisticated life that you read about in magazines or see in movies. Later on we saw a tiny, wide, low Ferrari convertible glide past, circle around, and park outside a small Italian restaurant, yet another moment of the rich rich rich life happening before our eyes. I found that really cool, and I can’t quite explain why, but I loved it. It was basically an amazing time walking around, and it was almost hard because I couldn’t take it all in, and I couldn’t express or figure out why it was so titillating. But it was sweet.
At last we made it back to the hotel, and my knees were yelling pain profanities at me, so I was very glad to hit the room and get off my feet. Now I’ve finished this journal, Nate Dogg Cold Six Packs To Go is trying to sleep, and I’m jacked on Mountain Dew and Jelly Bellies and ready to watch some Strong Bad emails and Simpsons.
Woohoo!
We’re in Chicago!
*Desired Departure Time
9/22/06
Katie’s highlight was pretty much “hangin’ out with yinz guys and walking around,” which pretty much describes our day. Nate’s and Sarah’s was the walk along the lakefront in the morning, on the way to the zoo. It wasn’t a beach, it wasn’t a dock, it was just…a waterfront. A breakwater, sortof. With the big gray-blue lake on the right and the city stretching out and up to the right. Chicago has tons of apartment buildings, vs. Pittsburgh which has basically none, and that gives the downtown a different and interesting look. My highlight was knocking on the docent office door and having Grandma Kari open it! But a few minutes later I changed it to watching the gibbons swinging outside the small primates house, with long strong arms and legs, constant rolling falls and swings lacing them around the ropes and branches and cage bars. Man, it was mesmerizing (and really made me want to be a monkey). Finally, I figured that the Molé sandwich at Cosi’s for dinner was quite possibly my true highlight of the day. I just sat there in amazement trying to take in how good this food was inside my mouth. That place was way cool—very slick (“shwanky”), but not expensive, and very pleasant to be in. Egyptian rat slap while we waited for our food was sweet, too.
Sooo….what details should I fill in? I dunno. I got up at 8:33 after 3.5 snoozes, showered, and met up with the rest of the crew to hit the day. We hit Lincoln Park Zoo first, getting to walk around for awhile with Grandma and Aunt Princess, which was quite pleasantly unusual, thrown in the middle of our trip. We also walked through the conservatory, which was packed with interesting greenery (though not as cool or big as Phipps. Hah!). It was a long walk up to the LPZ area, so we were all down with idea of taking the El back to the hotel area (“The loop”). Riding the El is cool—the trains are pretty old and SO loud! You can hardly believe the roar and clatter as it crescendos in the subway tunnels. I always feel like I’m in Spiderman or something when we’re on them :-) Once back in our “home base” area we toodled around for a lunch place, and I steered us to this cool old semi-ratty Food Network-type place where we got delicious and HUGE Philly steak-type sandwiches. It was a great Chicagoey place, and was another high point of the day for me.
We decided to hit Chinatown for the second half of the day, Sarah and Katie eagerly anticipating it after the craziness of New York City’s Chinatown. It turned out to be pretty different—out from the main city, pretty open, and basically just like normal shops and services just smaller, closer together, and oriental. It was still fun, though, and I landed some sweet candy, almost bought a cool and different-looking button up shirt, and….got an avocado smoothie. Yes. Avocado, soy milk, ice, and something probably like cane syrup. I had no idea what to expect, dude, but I watched him make it, so I knew there was indeed avocado (frozen, I think) in it. It was light green, creamy and icy, and ended up tasting creamy and nutty like almonds. Every once an awhile my brain would connect that flavor with avocado, but in general it tasted like something totally different. It entertained me all the way back to downtown, and I’m very glad I got it. I’ll have to try making one at home :-)
At this point in the day we were all footsore and Nate wanted to go sit down somewhere. So we went to a big Border’s bookstore where we stayed for a couple hours while it got dark and rained out in the wide streets and concrete sidewalks. Chicago in my mind right now is basically big streets full of trigger-happy honkers who push red lights like nobody’s business, big cool-looking buildings towering over you, nice sidewalks (with the occasional potent whiff of the Chicago Sewer System), and a staggering plethora of shwanky places of business. Patrons of such businesses fill the sidewalks and drive fittingly swanky cars, and live in the unimaginably expensive (and sweet) apartments filling the city. There are just tons and tons of businesses, from little hole-in-the-wall places like our lunch spots to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse and even swankier places with BMW 7-series coupes (yes, coupe!!) parked outside. It’s very cool, and I wish my knees and hips didn’t complain so much as I walked around. But whatever.
After party peanuts and candy corn (they taste like a Baby Ruth together!) in Border’s we finally got ourselves up and out and walking sorta toward an Irish pub, or anything that appeared warm and welcoming. Cosi’s (pronounced cozy’s) fit the bill, and we had an eminently enjoyable dinner there. After eating and sitting around lazily for a long time we walked down to the river and enjoyed a way cool nook with a Vietnam War memorial fountain—one of my favorite spots in Chi-town so far. Then to the hotel for some fierce rounds of Egyptian rat slap in Nate’s and my room, some sitting around vacant-eyed, and some talking about plans for tomorrow. Now Nate has hit the sack, I did the best 30 minutes of exercising I could in the hotel room without weights (and without killing my already pitiful leg joints), and now I’ve finished this journal (yay!) and I’m listening to Audio Adrenaline. Time to scrub off my poor teeth and hit the floor for some shut-eye.
This is a fun trip. Lots of walking, and it’s not like non-stop bowl you over incredible fun, but there are many moments of experiencing the “cityness” of this giant city, and that is a shy and magnificent concept that is very intriguing to explore and touch. I pray my legs hold out OK tomorrow, and that Katie’s sinuses clear up, and that it doesn’t rain, and that we are led to great things to do and see. Who would have thought 6 years ago that I’d be independent in downtown Chicago with the awesome Calano girls and some college guy?! [I didn’t know Nate 6 years ago] Crazy the things that happen in life :-)
9/23/06
I realized at one point tonight that we haven’t done anything this entire trip besides eating, sleeping and riding that costs money. That makes for a pretty sweet trip, in a different sort of way. One could look at us sitting in bookstores, walking around streets and wandering through little parks and say we’re having a pretty lame time, but it’s been extremely low-stress, and as I was walking back to the hotel this afternoon seeing, hearing, feeling and smelling the city around me I enjoyed the sense of this metropolis that has soaked into me over the past days. The ground shook and my ears cringed as a lumbering El train rolled through overhead, I twisted to make room for two passing guys wearing “De Paul” hoodies, another Baskin Robbins/Dunkin’ Doughnuts peered at me across the corner around a support pillar, and a dirty, wet, rusty brown and red alley swung by between buildings vaulting over my head as I walked down the sidewalk under the ancient rusting tracks of the brown line. Chicago surrounded me, and I felt like I was in a movie.
Tonight we went to Navy Pier—voted the best attraction in all of Chicago, glittering with amusement park rides, variegated restaurants, the crystal garden and shwanky events—and we spent all our time there sitting at the end of the pier taking pictures and looking at the city spread before us while the storm clouds rolled out to the east leaving broken white and glowing yellow behind the city as the sun, hidden for the day, made its way down to the earth. Suited shwankies, Hollistered preppies and camerad tourists walked down the length of the pier, the lights of the city sparkled and glinted more piercingly in the graying light, and the water kept its ceaseless lapping and rippling—a quivering mirror at the feet of the gathered stalks and blocks of buildings. The Chicago skyline is very majestic looking, and I keep thinking of a powerful person laying on the land, resting his elbows on the shore of the lake, reclining on the land but ready to jerk his head up and go into action. I delighted myself for a long time taking long exposure shots of the city as the sky settled into its pinkish glow and the water glimmered a rich blue. I haven’t yet thought out why taking pictures is so thrilling, but it made that time out in front of the city many times better for me, particularly because I got to use Nate’s pro camera and use up to 15-second exposures. It was a great time, and the pictures capture the lights and glows stunningly.
We did a lot more walking today, and my hips kept grinding away like they were bone on bone. Stupid legs. Nate’s feet were sore too. We headed south in the morning, down to Grant Park, the Buckingham Fountain, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography—something Nate was interested in seeing. The tops of the tall buildings faded into the high grey clouds and the wind blew, but it wasn’t chilling, and the grey wasn’t depressing. The museum didn’t open till noon so we killed 40 minutes around the Buckingham Fountain and a nearby rose garden. We took some quality pictures around there, and saw a flock of tourists on those freaky two-wheeled personal transport thingeys that came out a couple years ago. They looked…quite funny :-) The trees around the park had borne fruit, and a cherry battle ensued, lasting until the crosswalk that took us away from the vegetation. The tall buildings loomed far off to our right, and I especially enjoyed looking at the one under construction, with the crane perched atop it crossing the sky, the spikey unfinished floors at the top, and the taken-for-granted slickness of the finished lower portions.
The Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) was a nice place to be for awhile—inside, interesting, and intended for what we were doing in it. There were a couple interesting collections, and a couple that frustrated me with their utter normalcy, and over all it was a fine place, and I enjoyed getting to sit on the benches for awhile.
Coming out of the museum we headed for lunch, steered to “The Tamarind” by the girl at the museum. “The Tamarind” is “an eclectic Asian restaurant,” and it lived up to its name. And, it was swanky :-) The lunch specials were $9, which we considered a good deal compared to the $31 entrees. I got Vietnamese squid lemongrass, Katie got Japanese pancakes, Sarah got vegetable sushi (oh, the travesty!), and Nate got this awesome red curry shrimp with coconut sauce. From my first bite of tender field greens with perfect miso dressing I knew that this was a good place, and the rest of the meal proved to be delicious and of the highest quality. I really enjoyed everything, and by the end of what had appeared to be a boring plate of brown sauce, zucchini, tomatoes and unendingly chewable squid, I had grown quite attached to the perfect flavors and textures. You got your nine bucks worth, but I’m also quite happy at Mr. Johnny’s grill with a monstrous beef sandwich and a Mountain Dew. Mostly, I’m just quite happy :-)
We lounged at our window table for a long time waiting the rain out, which had finally descended in a Pittsburgh-like shower. It was a relaxing place to sit in, and I enjoyed the finery of it, knowing that everything was good quality, even down to the sleek faucets in the men’s room. When the rain let up we walked to what Google Earth listed as a giant music store where we could try out guitars and all kinds of cool stuff. It turned out to be a Barnes and Noble (had been for 2 years), so we split up—Nate heading back to the hotel for a nap, Sarah and Katie doing some shopping, and me free in Chicago with money, time, a map, and a desire to experience where I was. So…I read Calvin and Hobbes, bought some WHITE CHEDDAR Oke Doke (omg!), stopped at a Walgreens and got a Cherry-vanilla Dr.Pepper, and walked down, unwittingly, to the Sears Tower. It was sort of strange carrying this 99 cent bag of popcorn and bottle of pop with no bag or anything, not really sure where I was headed or what I wanted to do, but I rolled with it, and much enjoyed the views of the titanic Sears Tower as I approached it. It was great to sit on a bench by a fountain across from it, lay back, and just soak in its massiveness. Then I walked back to the hotel on a street that had an El line running above it, which I wrote about above. That walk was really sweet—one of the things that sticks in my head from the day.
After some down time at the hotel we headed out again, into the pelting rain, seeking Navy Pier and eventually dinner. The pier was sweet, though we did little of the normal activities there besides buying some candied almonds and a bracelet, and we ended up toughing it out dinnerless till we got back around the hotel area. Which, I realized, is pretty much the coolest place in downtown Chicago. Whereas the other posh hotels are bland highrise buildings amongst bland highrise buildings, The Ohio House sits across from a “Mega Donalds” (2-story McDonalds with a whole loungey thingey upstairs and gelatos and espresso drinks and cool crazy glass walls), several mid to upper range restaurants, and the sweet place where we ate dinner. It looked like just another restaurant from outside (reSHTaurant, as Sarah would say), but inside it was like a courtyard or something, with a second floor mezzanine and four or five food places. Man, it was like being outside, except you were inside! I really enjoyed dinner there, and I got another Italian beef sandwich (a Chicago standard), which was eminently enjoyable, if not as bursting-with-flavor as yesterday’s. I loved the feel ofthat place—around the crazy McDonalds and other lower buildings that gave you a sense of space, college students in and out, and that cool feeling of an interior made to be like outdoors.
That would have been a pretty nice way to cap off the day, but after Katie finished her fish sandwich we crossed over to the McD’s and lounged up there for several hours, eating ice-cream, sitting in deep comfort in deep comfortable chairs, and playing cards. It was the perfect place to be that night, and I just soaked in the pleasure of being there, in such a cool-looking building…that was a McDONALDS, for crying out loud, and was in CHICAGO! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Plus, I beat Katie in rat slap (after the epic game of “Up the creek down the creek”) by slapping a pair of jacks at the bitter end. Oh the glory!
So, I feel very blessed by God as I ruminate on the day’s experiences and let the writing settle them into my memory and percolate their pleasures deep down inside. I feel like I’ve gotten to see this city, which is an elusive thing, and the four of us have been able to abide together, enjoy our company, and chill.
Pleasant dreams! The city lives around me in the mysterious intrigue of night, and I lay on the floor happy, comfortable, fuzzily tired, and knowing there’s more to come tomorrow.
9/24/06
Sunday; last day in Chicago. I’m writing this journal on Tuesday because I didn’t/couldn’t take the time to write it Sunday or Monday nights. I don’t have time to write it now, but I am. It’s a good time to summarize the day and then step back and look at the trip and see what it was all about.
Sunday was a great day. As Nate said later, the trip seemed to build up and get better and better as it went on. The clouds finally broke, and though the temperature was a bit chilly, the blue skies were well worth it. I had my last apple juice-pop tart-Kashi bar breakfast and met up with everybody at 9:30. Millennium Park was the morning’s destination, having been highly and repeatedly recommended to us. I wasn’t expecting much—I mean, a pavilion, some shiny “bean” thing…big deal. But parks are nice to walk around in, you get a sweet view of the city from the lake shore, and we were carrying along a Frisbee :-) As it turns out, Millennium Park was one of the best parts of the whole weekend. We cut over east to the lake front and walked down the bike/walking trail there past a forest of boats and a jungle of highways till we reached the park. We walked through some closed garden thingeys and got to the pavilion, whereupon I proceeded to be in awe, and run out for a long pass. It was basically a huge grass field with a stage at one end and giant poles crisscrossing it like a sparse ceiling, from which speakers hung on cables. It was unexpectedly awesome—such a big expanse of verdant grass, with the majestic city behind it and these sweeping, soaring lines of grey pipe swooping high overhead, making you feel like you were inside, but not at all separated from the outside. We tossed around the disc for probably half an hour, and that whole time I just soaked in the amazingness of my surroundings. I didn’t want to leave, but it turns out there was more to come, with the much-touted “BEAN.”
The bean is pretty much that—a huge (~20 ft. long) jelly-bean-shaped shiny chrome blob set in the middle of a big patio area under the gaze of the city, with the gardens and landscape of Millennium Park in the foreground. In this world you never something that big and that perfectly shiny, so it immediately grabbed my attention as we walked towards it. We spent another 30 minutes or so basically walking around and under it, marveling, gaping at and laughing at the reflections we saw. On the concave exterior it’s like a real-life moving version of those “bubble” camera shots, with the city bulging and sweeping in a panorama wider than you could see with your eyes. Underneath the bean was a very very clever depression that led to a kaleidoscope of repeated reflections that left you squinting and trying to guess where you were in what you were seeing. We took a bunch of pictures leaning against it, looking at ourselves in it, and—in my case—jumping up against it. Probably you’ll just have to go there to understand how cool it was. Pretty much one of the most entrancing, delightful and wildly unusual things I’ve ever seen in my life.
The last things we saw at MP were these crazy video fountain things and some cool displays about cutting edge gardens around the world. I was surprised and very happy that people had come up with such truly stunning and magnificent things in this day and age—magnificent in their very design, not because of some gadget. Kind of seemed like a modern day pyramid or something—something grand and cool to look at, that sticks out in the world. I was happy for my species :-)
Around noon we had to head back to the hotel to check out. Another walk through the Chicago streets with my grinding leg joints and the typical chatter of comments on what was around us and various references to running jokes. It’s funny—looking back it feels like all our times walking around and touring stuff were comedy acts or something…most things we said ended up in a joke or a funny comment of some kind, especially on my part. In that respect it was a very unusual time, ‘cause usually I go about my days by myself or with family, where it’s more down to earth communication. I kinda wonder if I got really annoying like I was always fishing for laughs, always keeping a running commentary on the world as it passed before us. But I was aware of that danger as we went along, and tried not to blabber or joke around beyond what was natural to do and what seemed actually funny. Probably there was some of both, but hopefully I was enjoyable company, and I hope I wasn’t an annoyance to Sarah, Nate and Katie. I do know that there were a lot of funny jokes that came up, like Sarah shtrolling down the shtreet looking for a reshtaurant, and just in general being wrong in everything she said and did (versus me, of course), and me getting excited about cranes and second levels and Walgreens, and Katie struggling with her suitcases (ahh, Woody!), and Nate…just being Nate :-P I surprised myself with an ability to pick up a running joke on the fly and tie it into a string of conversation unexpectedly. I hope the other guys enjoyed those as much as I did. They laughed a lot, so I think there's a good chance. It's funny - we didn’t ever specifically talk about *spiritual stuff* like quiet times or something, but I don’t think we were shunning God from our conversation. I look back and see us pretty much reveling in the pure joy of God’s bounty and blessing and goodness in a really cool and extraordinary place. Like happy children running around the bins and shelves in God’s candy store (something everybody probably would have laughed at if I would have said it walking down the streets sometime). There is a depth and purity and peace of joy that we are able to experience as fellow Christians that I think blows away most of the happiness in a life without God, and that I’m very grateful for. This was a time of that, in a big ol’ heaping American-sized portion :-)
Back to the hotel. We checked out and left all our stuff except Nate’s work laptop in lobby by the front desk, which was in its own sweet little building outside the hotel. Then we set off again, free till six for our last explorations of Chi-town. I forget where exactly we were headed…I think roughly to the Sears Tower, but we were looking for a good lunch place, and ended up at Miller’s Pub and Restaurant, which furnished the third highlight of the day. For, you see, till now we hadn’t heard a single Chicago accent, and deep down that left a little empty hole in our city experience…a hole that was filled as soon as our waitress walked up and welcomed us. She was a good ol’ Chicago lady and she took good care of us, helping us out as we looked through the huge and appetizing menu (which ended up making things harder ‘cause there we just MORE things that sounded good that we wanted to get!), makin’ us some good salads, and workin’ things out with her boys in the kitchen :-) So we sat in our booth, ate big heaping portions of great American food, and watched Da Bearssss play on TV…a consummate Chicago experience. I even got Goose Island Honker’s Ale, a good local brew. That was a really nice time, and I’m so glad God led us to that restaurant. It was the perfect spot.
After lunch we spent some time in the blocks around the Sears Tower. Nate and I didn’t end up going up the tower, seeing as there was a 45-minute line and it cost $12, but I nevertheless got SEARS TOWER MINTS!!!! at the gift shop, and we had ample time to soak in its powerful immensity. Nate and I got some Starbucks which was delicious, Sarah and Katie took some phone calls, and I took hundreds of pictures with Nate’s camera. Heheh. He probably regretted it, but Nate Dawg Cold Six-Packs To Go asked me if I’d carry his camera for the day and I greedily assented. I could take pictures all day, especially with a pro-quality camera like Nate’s. Every angle looking down a street, every spot of glowing sunlight, every dizzying vista of towering buildings, every view and every angle had the potential to look awesome on screen. Having that camera was seriously one of the highlights of that day for me, since through it I got to vigorously experience and preserve the day and all the wondrous stuff around me. Nate’s gonna burn me a DVD of the pics, and I can’t wait to shuffle through them and find the outstanding ones, the ones that capture what we saw and how beautiful it was. Yay cameras!
That’s pretty much what we did for the afternoon – hung around the Sears tower and walked back to the hotel. The blue skies and sunshine uplifted the whole day, and I think all of us got on the outbound El feeling fully satisfied with our experience of the city. Nate agreed with me as we talked on the plane flight (in between throwing things at Sarah across the aisle): there was nothing we could think of that we wished we’d done, or that was left incomplete or missing. Another few days would have been fun, but not that much more so, and we were starting to get pretty tired (everybody but me). Even the El ride out to Midway and the time in the airport eating dinner were very pleasant (The El ride was actually stunning—we got to watch the sun set over the city, stretching before us in the glowing light like a scene from Star Wars). I remember sitting at the table eating Chinese and joking around, feeling a totally peaceful post-caffeine comfortable laid-backness, feeling Chicago around me and leaning back comfortably into the couch of the three personalities in front of me.
And that’s pretty much the trip there. We flew back, hefted our bags out to our cars in extended parking, and bid each other farewell under the night sky. I drove back home and pounded Switchfoot through the subwoofer, something I’d been looking forward to for the past 3 days. I left the window open all the way, abiding in the rush of cool air, not wanting to shut myself in to the car and end the trip. I didn’t feel sad as I shifted down the familiar streets, back in Pittsburgh again, I just sat back and let the subs pound the music into my body, basking in the fresh memories of a trip without blemish, thinking in the new mindset that now contained memories unlike any before. I think of this trip and I just think of me, Nate, Sarah and Katie lounging in the big comfy chairs up in the shwanky cool McDonald’s, looking out the glass walls at the streets and buildings and people, in the middle of the huge city as it lived on in the night, and we were part of that life.
It was a good trip :-) Unique in my experience. Old friends in a totally different setting. Mild and rich, like the latte I had this afternoon. Thank you God for such a kind kind blessing on your little children!
--Clear Ambassador
Oh oh oh!! I have a bunch of cell phone pictures too, which I took partially with the goal of including them in this blog. I'll do all I can to get them in here soon, and that should be SWEET.
9/21/06
So, today started out at home, sleeping in comfortably till 9:30, eating the heartiest breakfast in recent Johnian history (courtesy of the amazing Mrs. Behrens), and driving the van over to mow Complete Fitness at 10:30. What is normally a long mow became interminable, and at last, out of gas and out of trimmer line, and way out of time, I had to leave with edges still untrimmed, and basically no time to pack. But shower and pack I did, in a diligent frenzy. Katie and Sarah arrived as I was finishing, and we headed out in the Mazda not too long after our DDT* of 1:30. To the airport we drove, listening to Jars’ new album with the sweet sweet subwoofer. The flight and all went hitchlessly, except for one WOEFUL incident. Man! It’s yes, funny, but also it was really a downer. Probably a downer and a half. I had purchased a Dr.Pepper while waiting at the gate, and it had reached that perfect state of coldness and just the right amount of carbonation. It was not quite half finished, and I was enjoying it immensely. Then the dude at the end of the jetway said they wouldn’t let me take it on the plane, even though I’d bought it AFTER SECURITY inside the terminal!! So I had to give him that perfect, perfect Dr.Pepper and walk away with this literal hole in my mind and stomach where it should have been. Man, I kid you not, it was rough. But, they had Dr.P on the flight (bless you Southwest Airlines!!), so that about 85% made up for it. Arg.
So, we got to Chicago after a very short flight, got our bags, and headed for the CTA, or “El”—the train/subway system which would take us to the grand and glorious “Ohio House” hotel, our cheapest-of-the-cheap residence for the next 3 nights. The ride was good, and felt very city-like and American, as we clacked through Chicago’s odd juxtaposition of residential and industrial buildings. The big factories and warehouses and train yards and mysterious back lots and rusty equipment have always intrigued me, and riding the train was a good way to see a lot of that.
We had a bit of a walk once we got off at Grand Street, and after working out hard the day before and mowing and trimming Complete, my arms were in quite a tizzy. But I made it, and the Ohio House turned out to be a very competent, and even pleasant, cheap hotel. After getting settled in our respective rooms, Sarah, Katie and I walked about for awhile, marveling at the number of expensive restaurants around. We stopped at an Eckerd and I got some breakfasty food, and a little later we swung into a White Hen pantry, where I found WINTERGREEN SUGAR-FREE ALTOIDS!! Pretty much one of the best mints I could possibly come across. Man, the joys of a mint collection! And they’re really good, too—not so strong they burn craters in your tongue like the peppermint ones. Happy happy!
Nate Dogg Cold Six Packs To Go called to let us know he was close to the hotel (he had to get a later flight ‘cause of a meeting he was at in Philly), so we hoofed it back, got him settled in the room, and headed out to forage for dinner. We foraged our way to the ORIGINAL Unos Pizzeria, where we waited for a good while and ended up ploughing through copiously-cheesed deep-dish Chicago pizza, talking, laughing, and banging knees across the very narrow booth. It was a cool place, and the pizza was good, though my richness tolerance was soon being pushed. The Code Red Mt. Dew was great, though, and left me high (and probably really irritating) for the rest of the night.
Which we spent walking down to the lake and then wandering around SSCCCHwanky areas of downtown. SSCCCHwanky here representing Sarah’s gratuitiously-Pittsburghian pronunciation of “swanky.” The lake was cool and we walked through this awesome little park with a panoramic view of the lit-up city from a square of perfect green grass with the lake to our backs and the wind blowing at us. Then as we walked down a street inland, I took us up this stairway, thinking it would be a cool little patio thing to walk on for a bit before going back down to the ground. But it turned out that THAT was the level that the city was on! I could hardly believe it, and we spent a lot of time walking around exploring it, but a whole ton of the city around the lakefront and river is actually two levels. The lower one seems to be mostly roads and parking garages, and then the upper level, very much of which is just concrete on steel pillars, is where everybody walks and shops and drives on 8-lane roads stretching for miles. I just couldn’t believe how amazing that was (and probably tired everyone with my attempts to grapple with it)—that this whole world was elevated, that there was all this mysterious stuff beneath us, and that it had all been constructed, at who knows what cost. It’s hard to describe, but something about that removal from the pedestrian and predictable constraints of normal ground-based areas was very very intriguing, and ineffably tantalizing. I love cities for that reason, and this night, as we wandered around the levels and random nooks, fountains, benches and walkways, provided ample material for wonderment and joy. Oh, and it was AMAZING. At one point we were walking along, approaching this big crowd of people outside some restaurant. This car was parked in a little driveway sorta thing, and as we walked around it I saw the little “B” indicating that it was a Bentley…probably a two hundred thousand dollar car. Two spots down on the curb was a Ferrari, and behind that was a Porsche sport ute. We walked through the crowd, which consisted of very fine-looking folks and security people. The restaurant looked packed and very SCCHHWanky, and I marveled that we had just walked through the kind of high-brow uber-sophisticated life that you read about in magazines or see in movies. Later on we saw a tiny, wide, low Ferrari convertible glide past, circle around, and park outside a small Italian restaurant, yet another moment of the rich rich rich life happening before our eyes. I found that really cool, and I can’t quite explain why, but I loved it. It was basically an amazing time walking around, and it was almost hard because I couldn’t take it all in, and I couldn’t express or figure out why it was so titillating. But it was sweet.
At last we made it back to the hotel, and my knees were yelling pain profanities at me, so I was very glad to hit the room and get off my feet. Now I’ve finished this journal, Nate Dogg Cold Six Packs To Go is trying to sleep, and I’m jacked on Mountain Dew and Jelly Bellies and ready to watch some Strong Bad emails and Simpsons.
Woohoo!
We’re in Chicago!
*Desired Departure Time
9/22/06
Katie’s highlight was pretty much “hangin’ out with yinz guys and walking around,” which pretty much describes our day. Nate’s and Sarah’s was the walk along the lakefront in the morning, on the way to the zoo. It wasn’t a beach, it wasn’t a dock, it was just…a waterfront. A breakwater, sortof. With the big gray-blue lake on the right and the city stretching out and up to the right. Chicago has tons of apartment buildings, vs. Pittsburgh which has basically none, and that gives the downtown a different and interesting look. My highlight was knocking on the docent office door and having Grandma Kari open it! But a few minutes later I changed it to watching the gibbons swinging outside the small primates house, with long strong arms and legs, constant rolling falls and swings lacing them around the ropes and branches and cage bars. Man, it was mesmerizing (and really made me want to be a monkey). Finally, I figured that the Molé sandwich at Cosi’s for dinner was quite possibly my true highlight of the day. I just sat there in amazement trying to take in how good this food was inside my mouth. That place was way cool—very slick (“shwanky”), but not expensive, and very pleasant to be in. Egyptian rat slap while we waited for our food was sweet, too.
Sooo….what details should I fill in? I dunno. I got up at 8:33 after 3.5 snoozes, showered, and met up with the rest of the crew to hit the day. We hit Lincoln Park Zoo first, getting to walk around for awhile with Grandma and Aunt Princess, which was quite pleasantly unusual, thrown in the middle of our trip. We also walked through the conservatory, which was packed with interesting greenery (though not as cool or big as Phipps. Hah!). It was a long walk up to the LPZ area, so we were all down with idea of taking the El back to the hotel area (“The loop”). Riding the El is cool—the trains are pretty old and SO loud! You can hardly believe the roar and clatter as it crescendos in the subway tunnels. I always feel like I’m in Spiderman or something when we’re on them :-) Once back in our “home base” area we toodled around for a lunch place, and I steered us to this cool old semi-ratty Food Network-type place where we got delicious and HUGE Philly steak-type sandwiches. It was a great Chicagoey place, and was another high point of the day for me.
We decided to hit Chinatown for the second half of the day, Sarah and Katie eagerly anticipating it after the craziness of New York City’s Chinatown. It turned out to be pretty different—out from the main city, pretty open, and basically just like normal shops and services just smaller, closer together, and oriental. It was still fun, though, and I landed some sweet candy, almost bought a cool and different-looking button up shirt, and….got an avocado smoothie. Yes. Avocado, soy milk, ice, and something probably like cane syrup. I had no idea what to expect, dude, but I watched him make it, so I knew there was indeed avocado (frozen, I think) in it. It was light green, creamy and icy, and ended up tasting creamy and nutty like almonds. Every once an awhile my brain would connect that flavor with avocado, but in general it tasted like something totally different. It entertained me all the way back to downtown, and I’m very glad I got it. I’ll have to try making one at home :-)
At this point in the day we were all footsore and Nate wanted to go sit down somewhere. So we went to a big Border’s bookstore where we stayed for a couple hours while it got dark and rained out in the wide streets and concrete sidewalks. Chicago in my mind right now is basically big streets full of trigger-happy honkers who push red lights like nobody’s business, big cool-looking buildings towering over you, nice sidewalks (with the occasional potent whiff of the Chicago Sewer System), and a staggering plethora of shwanky places of business. Patrons of such businesses fill the sidewalks and drive fittingly swanky cars, and live in the unimaginably expensive (and sweet) apartments filling the city. There are just tons and tons of businesses, from little hole-in-the-wall places like our lunch spots to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse and even swankier places with BMW 7-series coupes (yes, coupe!!) parked outside. It’s very cool, and I wish my knees and hips didn’t complain so much as I walked around. But whatever.
After party peanuts and candy corn (they taste like a Baby Ruth together!) in Border’s we finally got ourselves up and out and walking sorta toward an Irish pub, or anything that appeared warm and welcoming. Cosi’s (pronounced cozy’s) fit the bill, and we had an eminently enjoyable dinner there. After eating and sitting around lazily for a long time we walked down to the river and enjoyed a way cool nook with a Vietnam War memorial fountain—one of my favorite spots in Chi-town so far. Then to the hotel for some fierce rounds of Egyptian rat slap in Nate’s and my room, some sitting around vacant-eyed, and some talking about plans for tomorrow. Now Nate has hit the sack, I did the best 30 minutes of exercising I could in the hotel room without weights (and without killing my already pitiful leg joints), and now I’ve finished this journal (yay!) and I’m listening to Audio Adrenaline. Time to scrub off my poor teeth and hit the floor for some shut-eye.
This is a fun trip. Lots of walking, and it’s not like non-stop bowl you over incredible fun, but there are many moments of experiencing the “cityness” of this giant city, and that is a shy and magnificent concept that is very intriguing to explore and touch. I pray my legs hold out OK tomorrow, and that Katie’s sinuses clear up, and that it doesn’t rain, and that we are led to great things to do and see. Who would have thought 6 years ago that I’d be independent in downtown Chicago with the awesome Calano girls and some college guy?! [I didn’t know Nate 6 years ago] Crazy the things that happen in life :-)
9/23/06
I realized at one point tonight that we haven’t done anything this entire trip besides eating, sleeping and riding that costs money. That makes for a pretty sweet trip, in a different sort of way. One could look at us sitting in bookstores, walking around streets and wandering through little parks and say we’re having a pretty lame time, but it’s been extremely low-stress, and as I was walking back to the hotel this afternoon seeing, hearing, feeling and smelling the city around me I enjoyed the sense of this metropolis that has soaked into me over the past days. The ground shook and my ears cringed as a lumbering El train rolled through overhead, I twisted to make room for two passing guys wearing “De Paul” hoodies, another Baskin Robbins/Dunkin’ Doughnuts peered at me across the corner around a support pillar, and a dirty, wet, rusty brown and red alley swung by between buildings vaulting over my head as I walked down the sidewalk under the ancient rusting tracks of the brown line. Chicago surrounded me, and I felt like I was in a movie.
Tonight we went to Navy Pier—voted the best attraction in all of Chicago, glittering with amusement park rides, variegated restaurants, the crystal garden and shwanky events—and we spent all our time there sitting at the end of the pier taking pictures and looking at the city spread before us while the storm clouds rolled out to the east leaving broken white and glowing yellow behind the city as the sun, hidden for the day, made its way down to the earth. Suited shwankies, Hollistered preppies and camerad tourists walked down the length of the pier, the lights of the city sparkled and glinted more piercingly in the graying light, and the water kept its ceaseless lapping and rippling—a quivering mirror at the feet of the gathered stalks and blocks of buildings. The Chicago skyline is very majestic looking, and I keep thinking of a powerful person laying on the land, resting his elbows on the shore of the lake, reclining on the land but ready to jerk his head up and go into action. I delighted myself for a long time taking long exposure shots of the city as the sky settled into its pinkish glow and the water glimmered a rich blue. I haven’t yet thought out why taking pictures is so thrilling, but it made that time out in front of the city many times better for me, particularly because I got to use Nate’s pro camera and use up to 15-second exposures. It was a great time, and the pictures capture the lights and glows stunningly.
We did a lot more walking today, and my hips kept grinding away like they were bone on bone. Stupid legs. Nate’s feet were sore too. We headed south in the morning, down to Grant Park, the Buckingham Fountain, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography—something Nate was interested in seeing. The tops of the tall buildings faded into the high grey clouds and the wind blew, but it wasn’t chilling, and the grey wasn’t depressing. The museum didn’t open till noon so we killed 40 minutes around the Buckingham Fountain and a nearby rose garden. We took some quality pictures around there, and saw a flock of tourists on those freaky two-wheeled personal transport thingeys that came out a couple years ago. They looked…quite funny :-) The trees around the park had borne fruit, and a cherry battle ensued, lasting until the crosswalk that took us away from the vegetation. The tall buildings loomed far off to our right, and I especially enjoyed looking at the one under construction, with the crane perched atop it crossing the sky, the spikey unfinished floors at the top, and the taken-for-granted slickness of the finished lower portions.
The Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) was a nice place to be for awhile—inside, interesting, and intended for what we were doing in it. There were a couple interesting collections, and a couple that frustrated me with their utter normalcy, and over all it was a fine place, and I enjoyed getting to sit on the benches for awhile.
Coming out of the museum we headed for lunch, steered to “The Tamarind” by the girl at the museum. “The Tamarind” is “an eclectic Asian restaurant,” and it lived up to its name. And, it was swanky :-) The lunch specials were $9, which we considered a good deal compared to the $31 entrees. I got Vietnamese squid lemongrass, Katie got Japanese pancakes, Sarah got vegetable sushi (oh, the travesty!), and Nate got this awesome red curry shrimp with coconut sauce. From my first bite of tender field greens with perfect miso dressing I knew that this was a good place, and the rest of the meal proved to be delicious and of the highest quality. I really enjoyed everything, and by the end of what had appeared to be a boring plate of brown sauce, zucchini, tomatoes and unendingly chewable squid, I had grown quite attached to the perfect flavors and textures. You got your nine bucks worth, but I’m also quite happy at Mr. Johnny’s grill with a monstrous beef sandwich and a Mountain Dew. Mostly, I’m just quite happy :-)
We lounged at our window table for a long time waiting the rain out, which had finally descended in a Pittsburgh-like shower. It was a relaxing place to sit in, and I enjoyed the finery of it, knowing that everything was good quality, even down to the sleek faucets in the men’s room. When the rain let up we walked to what Google Earth listed as a giant music store where we could try out guitars and all kinds of cool stuff. It turned out to be a Barnes and Noble (had been for 2 years), so we split up—Nate heading back to the hotel for a nap, Sarah and Katie doing some shopping, and me free in Chicago with money, time, a map, and a desire to experience where I was. So…I read Calvin and Hobbes, bought some WHITE CHEDDAR Oke Doke (omg!), stopped at a Walgreens and got a Cherry-vanilla Dr.Pepper, and walked down, unwittingly, to the Sears Tower. It was sort of strange carrying this 99 cent bag of popcorn and bottle of pop with no bag or anything, not really sure where I was headed or what I wanted to do, but I rolled with it, and much enjoyed the views of the titanic Sears Tower as I approached it. It was great to sit on a bench by a fountain across from it, lay back, and just soak in its massiveness. Then I walked back to the hotel on a street that had an El line running above it, which I wrote about above. That walk was really sweet—one of the things that sticks in my head from the day.
After some down time at the hotel we headed out again, into the pelting rain, seeking Navy Pier and eventually dinner. The pier was sweet, though we did little of the normal activities there besides buying some candied almonds and a bracelet, and we ended up toughing it out dinnerless till we got back around the hotel area. Which, I realized, is pretty much the coolest place in downtown Chicago. Whereas the other posh hotels are bland highrise buildings amongst bland highrise buildings, The Ohio House sits across from a “Mega Donalds” (2-story McDonalds with a whole loungey thingey upstairs and gelatos and espresso drinks and cool crazy glass walls), several mid to upper range restaurants, and the sweet place where we ate dinner. It looked like just another restaurant from outside (reSHTaurant, as Sarah would say), but inside it was like a courtyard or something, with a second floor mezzanine and four or five food places. Man, it was like being outside, except you were inside! I really enjoyed dinner there, and I got another Italian beef sandwich (a Chicago standard), which was eminently enjoyable, if not as bursting-with-flavor as yesterday’s. I loved the feel ofthat place—around the crazy McDonalds and other lower buildings that gave you a sense of space, college students in and out, and that cool feeling of an interior made to be like outdoors.
That would have been a pretty nice way to cap off the day, but after Katie finished her fish sandwich we crossed over to the McD’s and lounged up there for several hours, eating ice-cream, sitting in deep comfort in deep comfortable chairs, and playing cards. It was the perfect place to be that night, and I just soaked in the pleasure of being there, in such a cool-looking building…that was a McDONALDS, for crying out loud, and was in CHICAGO! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Plus, I beat Katie in rat slap (after the epic game of “Up the creek down the creek”) by slapping a pair of jacks at the bitter end. Oh the glory!
So, I feel very blessed by God as I ruminate on the day’s experiences and let the writing settle them into my memory and percolate their pleasures deep down inside. I feel like I’ve gotten to see this city, which is an elusive thing, and the four of us have been able to abide together, enjoy our company, and chill.
Pleasant dreams! The city lives around me in the mysterious intrigue of night, and I lay on the floor happy, comfortable, fuzzily tired, and knowing there’s more to come tomorrow.
9/24/06
Sunday; last day in Chicago. I’m writing this journal on Tuesday because I didn’t/couldn’t take the time to write it Sunday or Monday nights. I don’t have time to write it now, but I am. It’s a good time to summarize the day and then step back and look at the trip and see what it was all about.
Sunday was a great day. As Nate said later, the trip seemed to build up and get better and better as it went on. The clouds finally broke, and though the temperature was a bit chilly, the blue skies were well worth it. I had my last apple juice-pop tart-Kashi bar breakfast and met up with everybody at 9:30. Millennium Park was the morning’s destination, having been highly and repeatedly recommended to us. I wasn’t expecting much—I mean, a pavilion, some shiny “bean” thing…big deal. But parks are nice to walk around in, you get a sweet view of the city from the lake shore, and we were carrying along a Frisbee :-) As it turns out, Millennium Park was one of the best parts of the whole weekend. We cut over east to the lake front and walked down the bike/walking trail there past a forest of boats and a jungle of highways till we reached the park. We walked through some closed garden thingeys and got to the pavilion, whereupon I proceeded to be in awe, and run out for a long pass. It was basically a huge grass field with a stage at one end and giant poles crisscrossing it like a sparse ceiling, from which speakers hung on cables. It was unexpectedly awesome—such a big expanse of verdant grass, with the majestic city behind it and these sweeping, soaring lines of grey pipe swooping high overhead, making you feel like you were inside, but not at all separated from the outside. We tossed around the disc for probably half an hour, and that whole time I just soaked in the amazingness of my surroundings. I didn’t want to leave, but it turns out there was more to come, with the much-touted “BEAN.”
The bean is pretty much that—a huge (~20 ft. long) jelly-bean-shaped shiny chrome blob set in the middle of a big patio area under the gaze of the city, with the gardens and landscape of Millennium Park in the foreground. In this world you never something that big and that perfectly shiny, so it immediately grabbed my attention as we walked towards it. We spent another 30 minutes or so basically walking around and under it, marveling, gaping at and laughing at the reflections we saw. On the concave exterior it’s like a real-life moving version of those “bubble” camera shots, with the city bulging and sweeping in a panorama wider than you could see with your eyes. Underneath the bean was a very very clever depression that led to a kaleidoscope of repeated reflections that left you squinting and trying to guess where you were in what you were seeing. We took a bunch of pictures leaning against it, looking at ourselves in it, and—in my case—jumping up against it. Probably you’ll just have to go there to understand how cool it was. Pretty much one of the most entrancing, delightful and wildly unusual things I’ve ever seen in my life.
The last things we saw at MP were these crazy video fountain things and some cool displays about cutting edge gardens around the world. I was surprised and very happy that people had come up with such truly stunning and magnificent things in this day and age—magnificent in their very design, not because of some gadget. Kind of seemed like a modern day pyramid or something—something grand and cool to look at, that sticks out in the world. I was happy for my species :-)
Around noon we had to head back to the hotel to check out. Another walk through the Chicago streets with my grinding leg joints and the typical chatter of comments on what was around us and various references to running jokes. It’s funny—looking back it feels like all our times walking around and touring stuff were comedy acts or something…most things we said ended up in a joke or a funny comment of some kind, especially on my part. In that respect it was a very unusual time, ‘cause usually I go about my days by myself or with family, where it’s more down to earth communication. I kinda wonder if I got really annoying like I was always fishing for laughs, always keeping a running commentary on the world as it passed before us. But I was aware of that danger as we went along, and tried not to blabber or joke around beyond what was natural to do and what seemed actually funny. Probably there was some of both, but hopefully I was enjoyable company, and I hope I wasn’t an annoyance to Sarah, Nate and Katie. I do know that there were a lot of funny jokes that came up, like Sarah shtrolling down the shtreet looking for a reshtaurant, and just in general being wrong in everything she said and did (versus me, of course), and me getting excited about cranes and second levels and Walgreens, and Katie struggling with her suitcases (ahh, Woody!), and Nate…just being Nate :-P I surprised myself with an ability to pick up a running joke on the fly and tie it into a string of conversation unexpectedly. I hope the other guys enjoyed those as much as I did. They laughed a lot, so I think there's a good chance. It's funny - we didn’t ever specifically talk about *spiritual stuff* like quiet times or something, but I don’t think we were shunning God from our conversation. I look back and see us pretty much reveling in the pure joy of God’s bounty and blessing and goodness in a really cool and extraordinary place. Like happy children running around the bins and shelves in God’s candy store (something everybody probably would have laughed at if I would have said it walking down the streets sometime). There is a depth and purity and peace of joy that we are able to experience as fellow Christians that I think blows away most of the happiness in a life without God, and that I’m very grateful for. This was a time of that, in a big ol’ heaping American-sized portion :-)
Back to the hotel. We checked out and left all our stuff except Nate’s work laptop in lobby by the front desk, which was in its own sweet little building outside the hotel. Then we set off again, free till six for our last explorations of Chi-town. I forget where exactly we were headed…I think roughly to the Sears Tower, but we were looking for a good lunch place, and ended up at Miller’s Pub and Restaurant, which furnished the third highlight of the day. For, you see, till now we hadn’t heard a single Chicago accent, and deep down that left a little empty hole in our city experience…a hole that was filled as soon as our waitress walked up and welcomed us. She was a good ol’ Chicago lady and she took good care of us, helping us out as we looked through the huge and appetizing menu (which ended up making things harder ‘cause there we just MORE things that sounded good that we wanted to get!), makin’ us some good salads, and workin’ things out with her boys in the kitchen :-) So we sat in our booth, ate big heaping portions of great American food, and watched Da Bearssss play on TV…a consummate Chicago experience. I even got Goose Island Honker’s Ale, a good local brew. That was a really nice time, and I’m so glad God led us to that restaurant. It was the perfect spot.
After lunch we spent some time in the blocks around the Sears Tower. Nate and I didn’t end up going up the tower, seeing as there was a 45-minute line and it cost $12, but I nevertheless got SEARS TOWER MINTS!!!! at the gift shop, and we had ample time to soak in its powerful immensity. Nate and I got some Starbucks which was delicious, Sarah and Katie took some phone calls, and I took hundreds of pictures with Nate’s camera. Heheh. He probably regretted it, but Nate Dawg Cold Six-Packs To Go asked me if I’d carry his camera for the day and I greedily assented. I could take pictures all day, especially with a pro-quality camera like Nate’s. Every angle looking down a street, every spot of glowing sunlight, every dizzying vista of towering buildings, every view and every angle had the potential to look awesome on screen. Having that camera was seriously one of the highlights of that day for me, since through it I got to vigorously experience and preserve the day and all the wondrous stuff around me. Nate’s gonna burn me a DVD of the pics, and I can’t wait to shuffle through them and find the outstanding ones, the ones that capture what we saw and how beautiful it was. Yay cameras!
That’s pretty much what we did for the afternoon – hung around the Sears tower and walked back to the hotel. The blue skies and sunshine uplifted the whole day, and I think all of us got on the outbound El feeling fully satisfied with our experience of the city. Nate agreed with me as we talked on the plane flight (in between throwing things at Sarah across the aisle): there was nothing we could think of that we wished we’d done, or that was left incomplete or missing. Another few days would have been fun, but not that much more so, and we were starting to get pretty tired (everybody but me). Even the El ride out to Midway and the time in the airport eating dinner were very pleasant (The El ride was actually stunning—we got to watch the sun set over the city, stretching before us in the glowing light like a scene from Star Wars). I remember sitting at the table eating Chinese and joking around, feeling a totally peaceful post-caffeine comfortable laid-backness, feeling Chicago around me and leaning back comfortably into the couch of the three personalities in front of me.
And that’s pretty much the trip there. We flew back, hefted our bags out to our cars in extended parking, and bid each other farewell under the night sky. I drove back home and pounded Switchfoot through the subwoofer, something I’d been looking forward to for the past 3 days. I left the window open all the way, abiding in the rush of cool air, not wanting to shut myself in to the car and end the trip. I didn’t feel sad as I shifted down the familiar streets, back in Pittsburgh again, I just sat back and let the subs pound the music into my body, basking in the fresh memories of a trip without blemish, thinking in the new mindset that now contained memories unlike any before. I think of this trip and I just think of me, Nate, Sarah and Katie lounging in the big comfy chairs up in the shwanky cool McDonald’s, looking out the glass walls at the streets and buildings and people, in the middle of the huge city as it lived on in the night, and we were part of that life.
It was a good trip :-) Unique in my experience. Old friends in a totally different setting. Mild and rich, like the latte I had this afternoon. Thank you God for such a kind kind blessing on your little children!
--Clear Ambassador
Monday, September 18, 2006
And the man seems wise
I've had several ideas for this blog. Earlier this week I was thinking about Mr. Sting. . . Mr. B Sting and his whole family of eight, and then Mr. Vee. . . Mr. Poison I. Vee who moved in when the Stings were leaving. Then on the way home tonight I was thinking about how to write about this weekend, how I wondered if the guy appreciated it when I moved over to the LEFT lane to let him pass me 'cause I figured out he was exiting in half a mile but wanted to go faster than I was, and then how I thought that maybe I wasn't that smart and considerate, and maybe I was actually dumb for not doing that right away, and how I wondered about that, and how another time I was lamenting how so many people live their lives so poorly in various ways, and I felt sad for all the thoughtless actions and missed possibilities that roll on every minute. I was thinking about how varied this weekend was, from the ride up with Kayte Bell to the ride home with a tiny spare tire doing 57 miles an hour and wincing at every bump. I was thinking about how I was feeling the end-of-trip sadness again after not feeling it for a very long time, but how it was half sadness and distaste for the dorm life I left Daniel in at Grove City. I was thinking about how the poison ivy was one of those things that's constant through a whole tumultuous weekend, and unpleasant, but not miserableifying, but also genuinely a pain and a downer and never ever going away during the whole time, but I was still quite happy and don't let this make you think I had a lousy weekend.
I think those were mostly the thoughts I had, and I'll stop there because I'm starting to come up with new thoughts now, and the point of this is to say that I'm NOT going to write out the weekend tonight because it's 12:30 and though I would be quite happy and satisfied to have the blog post written, I just can't stick another late late night to myself, being as I am still not 100% recovered from this nagging cold, and realizing as I am more and more that one must tame the wildness of ideas with the responsibilities of life. (hence the title of this post)
That paragraph was--unintentionally--one sentence!
My whole right arm is on fire with ye olde poison ivy.
"All the good monsters rattle their chains
And dance around the open flames
They make a lot of empty noise."
--"Good Monsters," from Good Monsters by Jars of Clay
As I said to Jonathan upstairs,
'nite dude!
--Clear Ambassador
I think those were mostly the thoughts I had, and I'll stop there because I'm starting to come up with new thoughts now, and the point of this is to say that I'm NOT going to write out the weekend tonight because it's 12:30 and though I would be quite happy and satisfied to have the blog post written, I just can't stick another late late night to myself, being as I am still not 100% recovered from this nagging cold, and realizing as I am more and more that one must tame the wildness of ideas with the responsibilities of life. (hence the title of this post)
That paragraph was--unintentionally--one sentence!
My whole right arm is on fire with ye olde poison ivy.
"All the good monsters rattle their chains
And dance around the open flames
They make a lot of empty noise."
--"Good Monsters," from Good Monsters by Jars of Clay
As I said to Jonathan upstairs,
'nite dude!
--Clear Ambassador
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Kennywood!
Today I had to pick the greater of two goods. There was a church picnic with Danmybro and other sweet people, but there was also an invitation from the Caldwells to go with them to Terry's company picnic at Kennywood. As I'm sure you've guessed from the title of this post, I chose Kennywood. Church picnics are sweet, and after the service I sorta wished I'd chosen that, but I haven't been to Kwood in years, and I tend to shun that which I'm not familiar with, so I went for the adventure. And it paid off, 'cause we had a SWEET time!
I played bass at church, which meant that I didn't have to leave till 8 o'clock, which was a boon. Playing bass was lovely. On such songs as "On My Side" and "Roll Me Over" I have been learning smidgens of what true bass playing is, and those smidgens have been intoxicating (well, not quite, but they were SWEET). It was great to put those into practice and play with Tim (who's playing basically every week now, and getting the feel of it). Nate's cool. Then sermon (I found my notebook AND remembered to bring it, so I took notes!), final song, diddling till they put a CD on, talking, changing quick, and heading out to Kennywood.
The Trib had the big huge pavilion and we were a bit early, so we sat down right by the awaiting food tables and partook of the FREE POP FOUNTAINS (ooh, such a dream of my childhood) till feeding time. The double burger was all I could ask for in a double burger. It was one of those nice times with folks where you have enough time that you can both catch up on each others' lives and just talk about whatever comes up.
Soon after finishing, Katie and I were itching to hit the rides, so we departed and left Mr. and Mrs. C to their boring adulthood :-P The lines all looked hideously long, so we settled for the racer, and it ended up being not too bad. As we clacked up the ramp and rocketed down the track I suddenly remembered how sweet rollercoasters are! It's a rush like few things provide. It's funny - I kept having this picture in my mind...amusement parks with all these people standing in line and going on rides....they're basically places human creatures come to get physically shaken and jerked and wooshed around for excitement. If you imagine being a huge giant and looking down on this little city and these little creatures going and riding these little machines and staggering away from them laughing and breathing hard, it's kind of funny :-)
But I was happy to be a little creature getting wooshed around. We hit the Racer, then the Thunderbold, then the Pitt Fall, and then Phantom's Revenge. The Pitt Fall was a LONNGGGGGG line (as represented by those highly effective and original repeated letters), but it was quite an experience, and Katie's favorite ride of the day. You look up as you're getting hoisted up, and that little pole seems to go up forever into the precarious blue sky. Ahhh. We both walked away from that one a little jelly-kneed. The Phantom's Revenge was my favorite - the line was wonderfully quick, and the ride was powerfully fast. I could hardly believe how fast we went down those drops and turns! Good ride! After TPR we hit the Exterminator, which was the longest line of the day. BUT, once we got inside the building I was well occupied studying the huge control panel they had up front (the schtick is it's like you're going into a blown powerplant infested with 8-foot rats). I could hardly believe it at first, but it was indeed a real control panel from a real plant. Nobody would come up with a "Methanator CW P7 High" indicator light on their own :-) [CW = Cooling Water] I felt uncannily at home around the big dirty transformers and the ancient analog control panel with big honkin' indicator lights, process diagrams and dials. There's a place exactly like that at NOVA, and it's creepy and sweet. I couldn't quite figure out what kind of plant it had been taken from. There was a methanator, then CO2 and H2S strippers, then steam stuff, and lots of diagrams I couldn't see well enough to read. Plus the stinkin' line kept moving! It was cool, though. And the ride was CRAZY. I forgot the little cars spin as you go, so that was quite a rush. Good ride :-)
After the Exterminator we met up with Mr. and Mrs. C (Shall I call them Terry and Cindy? Hmm, that sounds so crass) and Terry said we should go on the Pittsburgh Plunge. So we did (there was no line) and got soaked! It was pretty funny, though, and then of course we had to do the Phantom again to dry off. We did a spinning swing ride after that, and that was enough for Katie :-) So the C's headed out, but I hung around for awhile longer to do some more spinny rides. It was pretty strange to be by myself there, and I would have given $20 or $30 easily to have Daniel there. But I wanted to get myself whipped and flipped around some more, so I pushed through the awkwardness. Oddly enough, though, I found myself getting slightly nauseous. After doing the King Kahuna (an indescribable combination of rotating seats on the end of a giant rotating arm that freeze at certain points and flip upside-down as the arm rotates) twice in a row, I had had enough. Finally I realized it was 'cause I was hungry--I'd had no food for 7 hours. So, all you amusement park patrons out there, don't run on "E"! The drive home was rather light-headed, and the seat seriously felt like the seat on the King Kahuna.
I came home to a house long bereft of Daniel, fairly long bereft of Mom and Daisy, and newly bereft of Jonathan. Dad was finishing cutting up veggies and doing some stuff on his laptop. I dinked around on my laptop till I felt decent enough to try some watermelon. I knew I needed food, but the prospect of that was quite unappealing at the moment. After watermeloning myself and talking to Mom on the cell phone (Grandpa gets out of the hospital tomorrow!) I was ready for food, so I started like all good men do . . . with extra-virgin olive oil, a quality non-stick skillet over medium-low heat, and diced sweet vidalia onion! Then the diced red pepper and tomatoes, and some taco seasoning to make my improptu salsa-like amalgam of flavor and deliciousness. WHICH was then incorporated into my John Behrens George Foreman Grill Quesadillas of Delight! I was humbled and grateful once again to have such quality ingredients and tools laying around for me to use at my whim. It'll be rough when I have my own place. But sweet, too, in a way.
So then I sorta watching the Manning brothers battle it out while doing AIM and writing on people's walls on Facebook. I'm still not a fan of the "news feed" on Facebook that shows everybody every single little thing you've done on Facebook. I just don't like having it all laid out in print like that. There was something about looking through friends' profiles and seeing what was new and what people were writing that was fun, low-key and winsome. Now it's all eerily spelled-out and you can keep tabs on who people look at, who they write to, what they delete, on and on. Facebook is still cool, but it used to be cooler. Them dudes took a gamble, and I don't think it's working. We'll see.
Um....yeah, I'm still not really having devotions, and I'm trying not to be totally fatalistic and discouraged about that. Care group last night was good. Hebrews 10. Therefore, since Christ shed His blood to open the way, let us DRAW NEAR to God! HOLD FAST to these things, and CONSIDER how to stir each other up. Draw near. Hold fast. Consider. Especially, draw near. Like Mr. Q was saying, if we can do that, the rest falls into place. It's hopeful, too, 'cause the way is wide open, as sure as the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, we just need to draw near to God. He's there to be drawn near to, no matter what has been going on for the last day or five years, and you just need to believe that and act on it, not get yourself into shape, or even "feel" like its true. It is, dude, so go on ahead.
OK, yay, I've written in my blog! I decided to ditch what has passed unchronicled and write about what I had ideas about: today.
I thought about starting a Facebook group to the effect of "I'm not informed enough or smart enough to have meaningful political opinions," in reaction to the bloated and self-important political rantings of my stupid peers. I can discuss ideologies to a small degree, I can believe, apply and act on the Bible, I can apply its principles to abstract situations in logical exercises, but I really have little or no ground to criticize or badmouth any political figures. Perhaps I'm apathetic and a terrible citizen and worthy of disdain from my politically-active and informed agemates, but I just think people and situations are too complicated to blabber about, and most of them don't affect me in ways I can (or decide to be able to) change, so it's just grasping (or shouting at) the wind. OK, there, there's my political rantings :-)
I'm happy about the coming weekends - Yellowcard concert with Daniel and Akronites, Chicago trip with Katie, Sarah and Nate, Pure Boss concert(s???), and then Steph's arrival and our visit to Grove City. Homework?? What homework? :-) :-/
Oh, I found out Friday afternoon that I have to take a hum/SS elective to graduate. And add/drop ended that day. Beautiful. So I freaked out, found History of Jazz, found it was full, talked to people, thought I could still get in and all would be well, and then found out Saturday that I couldn't get in. So now it sucks and and it's a big pain, but hopefully I'll end up in "Intro to Performance" and it won't be awkward or deleterious that I missed the first 2 weeks of class. Ugh.
I was sick this week, too, so I missed 2 days of working out. Plus I got stung eight times while mowing Al's lawn on Wednesday. Two separate yellowjacket holes, four each. They hurt for about an hour, but they have been itching like mosquito bites from hell for the past three days. The three on my right wrist were constantly forcing themselves into my consciousness all afternoon, and there's nothing to do to make it better. Oyg.
Got Jars of Clay's new album "Good Monsters." It's growing on me fast, and I already REALLY like tracks 2 and 3. Jars are fantastic.
Enough. Good-night!
--Clear Ambassador, back again
I played bass at church, which meant that I didn't have to leave till 8 o'clock, which was a boon. Playing bass was lovely. On such songs as "On My Side" and "Roll Me Over" I have been learning smidgens of what true bass playing is, and those smidgens have been intoxicating (well, not quite, but they were SWEET). It was great to put those into practice and play with Tim (who's playing basically every week now, and getting the feel of it). Nate's cool. Then sermon (I found my notebook AND remembered to bring it, so I took notes!), final song, diddling till they put a CD on, talking, changing quick, and heading out to Kennywood.
The Trib had the big huge pavilion and we were a bit early, so we sat down right by the awaiting food tables and partook of the FREE POP FOUNTAINS (ooh, such a dream of my childhood) till feeding time. The double burger was all I could ask for in a double burger. It was one of those nice times with folks where you have enough time that you can both catch up on each others' lives and just talk about whatever comes up.
Soon after finishing, Katie and I were itching to hit the rides, so we departed and left Mr. and Mrs. C to their boring adulthood :-P The lines all looked hideously long, so we settled for the racer, and it ended up being not too bad. As we clacked up the ramp and rocketed down the track I suddenly remembered how sweet rollercoasters are! It's a rush like few things provide. It's funny - I kept having this picture in my mind...amusement parks with all these people standing in line and going on rides....they're basically places human creatures come to get physically shaken and jerked and wooshed around for excitement. If you imagine being a huge giant and looking down on this little city and these little creatures going and riding these little machines and staggering away from them laughing and breathing hard, it's kind of funny :-)
But I was happy to be a little creature getting wooshed around. We hit the Racer, then the Thunderbold, then the Pitt Fall, and then Phantom's Revenge. The Pitt Fall was a LONNGGGGGG line (as represented by those highly effective and original repeated letters), but it was quite an experience, and Katie's favorite ride of the day. You look up as you're getting hoisted up, and that little pole seems to go up forever into the precarious blue sky. Ahhh. We both walked away from that one a little jelly-kneed. The Phantom's Revenge was my favorite - the line was wonderfully quick, and the ride was powerfully fast. I could hardly believe how fast we went down those drops and turns! Good ride! After TPR we hit the Exterminator, which was the longest line of the day. BUT, once we got inside the building I was well occupied studying the huge control panel they had up front (the schtick is it's like you're going into a blown powerplant infested with 8-foot rats). I could hardly believe it at first, but it was indeed a real control panel from a real plant. Nobody would come up with a "Methanator CW P7 High" indicator light on their own :-) [CW = Cooling Water] I felt uncannily at home around the big dirty transformers and the ancient analog control panel with big honkin' indicator lights, process diagrams and dials. There's a place exactly like that at NOVA, and it's creepy and sweet. I couldn't quite figure out what kind of plant it had been taken from. There was a methanator, then CO2 and H2S strippers, then steam stuff, and lots of diagrams I couldn't see well enough to read. Plus the stinkin' line kept moving! It was cool, though. And the ride was CRAZY. I forgot the little cars spin as you go, so that was quite a rush. Good ride :-)
After the Exterminator we met up with Mr. and Mrs. C (Shall I call them Terry and Cindy? Hmm, that sounds so crass) and Terry said we should go on the Pittsburgh Plunge. So we did (there was no line) and got soaked! It was pretty funny, though, and then of course we had to do the Phantom again to dry off. We did a spinning swing ride after that, and that was enough for Katie :-) So the C's headed out, but I hung around for awhile longer to do some more spinny rides. It was pretty strange to be by myself there, and I would have given $20 or $30 easily to have Daniel there. But I wanted to get myself whipped and flipped around some more, so I pushed through the awkwardness. Oddly enough, though, I found myself getting slightly nauseous. After doing the King Kahuna (an indescribable combination of rotating seats on the end of a giant rotating arm that freeze at certain points and flip upside-down as the arm rotates) twice in a row, I had had enough. Finally I realized it was 'cause I was hungry--I'd had no food for 7 hours. So, all you amusement park patrons out there, don't run on "E"! The drive home was rather light-headed, and the seat seriously felt like the seat on the King Kahuna.
I came home to a house long bereft of Daniel, fairly long bereft of Mom and Daisy, and newly bereft of Jonathan. Dad was finishing cutting up veggies and doing some stuff on his laptop. I dinked around on my laptop till I felt decent enough to try some watermelon. I knew I needed food, but the prospect of that was quite unappealing at the moment. After watermeloning myself and talking to Mom on the cell phone (Grandpa gets out of the hospital tomorrow!) I was ready for food, so I started like all good men do . . . with extra-virgin olive oil, a quality non-stick skillet over medium-low heat, and diced sweet vidalia onion! Then the diced red pepper and tomatoes, and some taco seasoning to make my improptu salsa-like amalgam of flavor and deliciousness. WHICH was then incorporated into my John Behrens George Foreman Grill Quesadillas of Delight! I was humbled and grateful once again to have such quality ingredients and tools laying around for me to use at my whim. It'll be rough when I have my own place. But sweet, too, in a way.
So then I sorta watching the Manning brothers battle it out while doing AIM and writing on people's walls on Facebook. I'm still not a fan of the "news feed" on Facebook that shows everybody every single little thing you've done on Facebook. I just don't like having it all laid out in print like that. There was something about looking through friends' profiles and seeing what was new and what people were writing that was fun, low-key and winsome. Now it's all eerily spelled-out and you can keep tabs on who people look at, who they write to, what they delete, on and on. Facebook is still cool, but it used to be cooler. Them dudes took a gamble, and I don't think it's working. We'll see.
Um....yeah, I'm still not really having devotions, and I'm trying not to be totally fatalistic and discouraged about that. Care group last night was good. Hebrews 10. Therefore, since Christ shed His blood to open the way, let us DRAW NEAR to God! HOLD FAST to these things, and CONSIDER how to stir each other up. Draw near. Hold fast. Consider. Especially, draw near. Like Mr. Q was saying, if we can do that, the rest falls into place. It's hopeful, too, 'cause the way is wide open, as sure as the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, we just need to draw near to God. He's there to be drawn near to, no matter what has been going on for the last day or five years, and you just need to believe that and act on it, not get yourself into shape, or even "feel" like its true. It is, dude, so go on ahead.
OK, yay, I've written in my blog! I decided to ditch what has passed unchronicled and write about what I had ideas about: today.
I thought about starting a Facebook group to the effect of "I'm not informed enough or smart enough to have meaningful political opinions," in reaction to the bloated and self-important political rantings of my stupid peers. I can discuss ideologies to a small degree, I can believe, apply and act on the Bible, I can apply its principles to abstract situations in logical exercises, but I really have little or no ground to criticize or badmouth any political figures. Perhaps I'm apathetic and a terrible citizen and worthy of disdain from my politically-active and informed agemates, but I just think people and situations are too complicated to blabber about, and most of them don't affect me in ways I can (or decide to be able to) change, so it's just grasping (or shouting at) the wind. OK, there, there's my political rantings :-)
I'm happy about the coming weekends - Yellowcard concert with Daniel and Akronites, Chicago trip with Katie, Sarah and Nate, Pure Boss concert(s???), and then Steph's arrival and our visit to Grove City. Homework?? What homework? :-) :-/
Oh, I found out Friday afternoon that I have to take a hum/SS elective to graduate. And add/drop ended that day. Beautiful. So I freaked out, found History of Jazz, found it was full, talked to people, thought I could still get in and all would be well, and then found out Saturday that I couldn't get in. So now it sucks and and it's a big pain, but hopefully I'll end up in "Intro to Performance" and it won't be awkward or deleterious that I missed the first 2 weeks of class. Ugh.
I was sick this week, too, so I missed 2 days of working out. Plus I got stung eight times while mowing Al's lawn on Wednesday. Two separate yellowjacket holes, four each. They hurt for about an hour, but they have been itching like mosquito bites from hell for the past three days. The three on my right wrist were constantly forcing themselves into my consciousness all afternoon, and there's nothing to do to make it better. Oyg.
Got Jars of Clay's new album "Good Monsters." It's growing on me fast, and I already REALLY like tracks 2 and 3. Jars are fantastic.
Enough. Good-night!
--Clear Ambassador, back again
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Excelent
=IF(B9<>"",IF(B8="",E7+1,E8+1),IF(AND(B7<>"",B8="",B9<>""),E7+1,""))
^ ^
The Excel formula (in cell E9) necessary to allow my Fall Fitness Challenge log sheet to continue adding up the days I have worked out even if I enter in a date which I missed. I don't know why, but I love Excel. I voluntarily did a manual least squares data fit this afternoon 'cause it seemed nice. It differed from my visual estimate by only 0.067, or 0.2%. That was all after I wailed and moaned until I saw that my linearization of the solution to the linear ordinary differential equation resultant from Newton's Law of Cooling was incorrect in its logarithm algebra. What a happy moment when the theoretical temperature-vs-time plot lined up with the actual data!
I guess the point of this is to document in what manner and degree I enjoy Excel at the moment, and how much my mind is used to thinking about math, algebra, mathematics, and the use of math to describe physical phenomena. It's like pulling teeth, but I'm starting to get my mind back into schoolwork. Rrrg.
--An Ambassador With A High Refractive Index
[For those who care (i.e. Mike), column E is the total days worked out and column B is where I enter the time, if I worked out.]
^ ^
The Excel formula (in cell E9) necessary to allow my Fall Fitness Challenge log sheet to continue adding up the days I have worked out even if I enter in a date which I missed. I don't know why, but I love Excel. I voluntarily did a manual least squares data fit this afternoon 'cause it seemed nice. It differed from my visual estimate by only 0.067, or 0.2%. That was all after I wailed and moaned until I saw that my linearization of the solution to the linear ordinary differential equation resultant from Newton's Law of Cooling was incorrect in its logarithm algebra. What a happy moment when the theoretical temperature-vs-time plot lined up with the actual data!
I guess the point of this is to document in what manner and degree I enjoy Excel at the moment, and how much my mind is used to thinking about math, algebra, mathematics, and the use of math to describe physical phenomena. It's like pulling teeth, but I'm starting to get my mind back into schoolwork. Rrrg.
--An Ambassador With A High Refractive Index
[For those who care (i.e. Mike), column E is the total days worked out and column B is where I enter the time, if I worked out.]
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